Lovely Things About My Love

In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share just a few of the things I love about my husband.



He smiles at me when I act like a 5 year old.



He chases geese with Kramer and makes
me laugh so hard my sides hurt.



He MAKES me flowers out of raspberry truffles.



He cheers for the Huskers even louder than I do.

  

He's just the right amount of silly. This is one of our engagement pictures. Seriously.



He loves his nieces and nephews and they love him.

He digs me beautiful holes in the ground.

He is easy on the eyes. I use words like "dashing" and "devistatingly handsome"
to describe him. And he makes my heart flutter every single day.

The Details of Life

A while back I was a guest blogger for a friend of mine. My husband stumbled on the blog the other day and I thought I'd share it here. It's amazing, I wrote this over a year and a half ago and, while I'm definitely more OK with the mystery, I still have my moments of wanting to catch a glimpse of what's in store. I'm obviously still a work in progress. And that is a beautiful thing as well.

If the average life expectancy is approximately 75 years, as young adults, we have more than half of our life ahead of us. This can be very exciting and, if you are anything like me, completely unsettling. One thing that bothers me is uncertainty. I like to know the plan, I like to know the route I’m taking to get from point A to point B, I like going to a movie, watching a television show, or reading a book and having a general idea what to expect. The guy will get the girl, the killer will be identified and the case solved within 60 minutes, and Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer will end up at the coffee shop.

Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer.

When it comes to my life I don’t necessarily need to know all of the details from beginning to end, but I would like to know the general outline of the plot. As the author of my life, God knows every single detail of the story while I am sort of along for the ride, finding out what happens as it happens and never any sooner. This not knowing is somewhat of a struggle for me. Instead of focusing on today and what is actually happening now, I think, daydream, worry, and wonder about what’s going to happen. I have it in my head that if I just knew a little bit about what will happen, I’d be perfectly content.

When I sit down and really think about it, being uncomfortable with all of the unknowns of my future really comes down to me not trusting God and wanting to be in control. And that sounds awful because of course I trust God, but apparently, I am still trying to hold on and control what the rest of my life will look like. I feel like I have conversations with God where I say, “ God, I know you are God. You know all and you have a plan for me and my life. I don’t know what that plan is, but in case you were interested in some ideas with respect to the plan, I have a couple of bullet points I’d like to go over with you.” I want what God wants for my life; I just wish I knew what that was and how to get it.



In his book, “Searching for God Knows What,” Donald Miller writes about how beautiful the not knowing can be,



The cover of my copy.



“The truth is there are a million steps, and we don’t even know what the steps are, and worse, at any given moment we may not be willing or even able to take them; and still worse, they are different for you and me and they are always changing. I have come to believe the sooner we find this truth beautiful, the sooner we will fall in love with the God who keeps shaking things up, keeps changing the path, keeps rocking the boat to test our faith in Him, teaching us to not rely on easy an swers, bullet points, magic mantras, or genies in lamps, but rather in His guidance, His existence, His mercy, and His love.”

That’s when it started to click for me. I don’t need to know the details of the plot because I know the author of the story. I love God and He loves me. His plans are far superior to anything I could ever imagine. He is good and worthy of my trust. The reality is that God doesn’t have to share anything with me. I’m not entitled to anything. When I gave my life to God, I gave Him the past, the present, and the future. So I’m learning to embrace the beautiful mystery of it all. That’s not to say I still don’t have days where I struggle, but I’m on board for the adventure and I’m going to trust God and enjoy the journey.



The new cover.

The original post can be found here.

January Fun

 Here are some highlights from January in our house.

Chicken Marsala.

Homemade Granola Bars.

Kramer meeting my brother's dog, Itty Bitty.

Chicken Piccata.

Homemade Guacamole.

Apparently we ate pretty good last month! Also, that picture of the guac makes it look like some baby food reject. I promise it looks better in real life and it tastes amazing.

Soup Season



Chili!



This time of year is perfect soup weather and we are taking full advantage. We’re making chili, taco soup, tomato soup, fiesta soup, Thai soup, new recipes, old recipes, made up recipes; you name it, we’re making it. And our hero of the season has been the crock-pot. It makes them like a champ over and over again, but this isn’t about the crock-pot, it’s about the soups.



Thai Chicken Soup



I’m not sure what happened when I was younger, but I developed a strong aversion to soups. Mom, don’t get upset, this in no way reflects upon you as a cook or a mother. You are phenomenal at both and I love you dearly! I think it was because we had the same soups on a regular basis and I just got sick of them. All of them. As a result, I didn’t eat soup or make soup and I was fine with that. I inched my way back into the soup world a few years ago with a chicken tortilla soup that was quick, easy, and very flavorful. Then I branched out to another Mexican-type soup and things progressed to full on soup love. So, even though it is stinking cold outside and the thermometer says “1F,” enjoying a nice bowl of soup makes it easier to handle somehow. And that is a huge accomplishment for winters in Nebraska.

Creamy Tomato Soup



These aren’t my pictures, in case you couldn’t tell… All pictures from Cook’s Illustrated.

Homemade Taco Seasoning

So maybe I'm late to the party on this, but have you tried making taco seasoning rather than purchasing the stuff in the grocery store aisle? It's so easy, tastes fantastic, and is much cheaper. Also, when I make it at home, it doesn't have fun stuff like maltodextrin, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and ethoxyquin. I initially found a recipe on allrecipes.com, but made some adjustments based on our tastes. Here's the recipe, try it for yourself and you'll never go back.

Yummy spices.

Taco Seasoning

1 Tbsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. minced onion
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. Lawry's seasoned salt
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. paprika
1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin

Mixing up the goodness.

1/2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. ground black pepper

Enjoy!

Mix all ingredients together. Add mix and 2/3 cup water to one pound prepared meat.

Birthday Tutu

One of the leftover items from my wedding last year is tulle. Lots and lots of white tulle. We kept it all, I'm not entirely certain why, but we did. And I'm so glad that we did because I recently stumbled on an idea for a great gift for a little girl, a homemade tutu. I had it in the back of my mind when I ran across some hot pink tulle on sale at Hobby Lobby after Christmas.

Hot Pink = Fa La La La La?

It was a great find at 60% off, but let me just address the white elephant in the room, who decorates with hot pink tulle for Christmas? Regardless, I'll take the deal and make a tutu with it. I cut a piece of elastic to about 20 inches, sewed the ends together, and made my waistband. 

Elastic waistband.

Then, I cut 22 pieces of white tulle and 22 pieces of hot pink Christmas tulle. My secret for cutting pieces like this is to find a piece of cardboard that is either half the length I need (7.5 inches) or the length that I need (15 inches). Then I wrap the tulle around the cardboard the appropriate number of times, cut it from the spool, slide it off the cardboard, and cut it once if it's half my desired length or twice if the cardboard is the length I need. It makes it much easier to manage the tulle and get pieces that are pretty close to the same size. After I had my pieces of tulle, I folded them in half and started to tie them on to the elastic waistband, alternating between the white and the pink.

Tie alternating colors of tulle.

When I had all of the pieces tied on, I added a piece of white ribbon and it was good to go.

TaDa! It's poofy enough to stand on its own.

Then, I wrapped it up in a shiny gift bag and gave it to my friend's daughter who just happened to be turning one year old. She's pretty active and the tutu seemed to give her an added shot of energy so she wasn't interested in posing for any pictures. This is the best shot I got of her on my phone. She loved it and she looks pretty darn cute in it too!

Birthday girl.

Basement Bathroom

Our house is lovely. It's nothing fancy, but it's very cute and it fits us pretty great right now. I have lived here for a little over five years now and we are finally getting started on the big project for the house: the basement. When I moved in, the upstairs part of the house was in pretty good shape. There was some wallpaper that required immediate disposal, the upstairs bathroom got a remodel, every room received a fresh coat of paint, and the original wood floors were refinished. All pretty minor stuff when compared to the basement.

The basement has wood paneling. Not the expensive kind either, the cheap, really tacky kind that just seems to make basements look dark and dated. There is no insulation down there so it gets pretty cold in the winter and it's just not a livable space right now. Enter the remodel project. I'm so excited about this! My dad and I started on the bathroom a couple of years ago. We would work on in on Saturdays when we both had time. We'd put in five to eight hours a week and call it good. I wasn't in any hurry and honestly, it was just a blast hanging out with my dad and learning some things from him. But now, the bathroom is finished (it actually has been finished for almost a year now) and we are starting on the rest of the basement. Before that gets going too far, I thought I'd take a look back and see how the bathroom progressed.

Before

The left side of the bathroom viewed from the door.

The view from the bottom of the steps.

The head on view from the door.

Looking right from the door. Light purple everywhere.

In case you can't tell from the photos above, the walls were some of the previously mentioned paneling painted a lovely shade of pastel purple. The Easter bunny would have been proud of that room. We gutted it. Everything was removed and the only thing that stayed the same is the stool. It was newer and in good condition so we reused it. We also decided not to move the drain so the stool stayed in the same position. Everything else got rotated around.


We switched to a corner shower to maximize space and the glass walls and door really help the space feel more open. The new sink was placed where the old door was and the new door was placed where the old sink was. This gave us extra room in the bathroom, but now you need to walk through the rest of the basement to get to the bathroom. I decided it was a fair trade. The room was painted a sunny yellow to keep things light down there and we tiled the floor with actual tiles, not the peel and stick kind that were there before. All in all, it's a much bigger space and it looks so much better than the previous version. And, we have two great bathrooms in the house!


After

The new view from the bottom of the steps.

View from the new door.

The corner shower.

The view of the new door.